Rather than leaving my 1950 truck alone for 6 months to figure which direction I wanted to go I started removing the paint off of all the fenders. Looking back at the pictures when I first picked it up I am now kicking myself for doing this. The cab, hood, bed and doors are untouched and I have been wondering if there is a way to match decades old paint with a faux patina or do I just keep moving on? I dont want to have a pristine looking paint job so I am leaning to either a complete paint job that looks aged or do I try to match the old?
Any advice would be appreciated.

It is definitely possible to match old patina, but you have to make sure to match the original process as much as possible. It looks to me that your truck was painted before with a custom color which you will have to match. Compounding the difficulty is that it appears to have some metallic in it. That will make it really hard to get the new paint to look the same as the old faded metallic paint.

On my truck, I repainted one part to match the original paint. Can you tell which part? I hope not Essentially what I did was match the original paint process as close as possible. As in, using black sealer/primer and then color matched single stage paint. Once the paint was new and shiny like it came, I started weathering it by slowly sanding it down with various sandpaper and steel wool grades. Many have scoffed at me for this, but it's how I wanted it to look! The result was a very close match to the original faded paint.

__________________
1948 Chevy pickup
Chopped, Sectioned, 1953 Corvette 235 powered. Once was even 401 Buick mid engined with the carburetor right between the seats!
Bought with paper route money in 1973 when I was 15.

I think it looks great. I prefer the old look primarily because your not going to focus on minor waviness or dings and I wont be paranoid of someone scratching it in the parking lot.Perhaps I will practice on some bare sheet metal and see how that works out. If not I will go with a matte or dull finish anyways.
Thanks for the input.

Hewitt...im gonna take a stab at it and say the bed........did I win?...............................confession time[I cheated]...do I still win? hahaha..I actually thought maybe the door at first...it has a little different sheen to it...truck looks great btw

I think it looks great. I prefer the old look primarily because your not going to focus on minor waviness or dings and I wont be paranoid of someone scratching it in the parking lot.Perhaps I will practice on some bare sheet metal and see how that works out. If not I will go with a matte or dull finish anyways.
Thanks for the input.

That's how I feel. I also use my truck for truck things and this way I really don't care if it gets the occasional bump or scratch. I do try to be careful, but it doesn't bother me if it does happen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Hewitt...im gonna take a stab at it and say the bed........did I win?...............................confession time[I cheated]...do I still win? hahaha..I actually thought maybe the door at first...it has a little different sheen to it...truck looks great btw

Haha, yes you win 5 internets. Oh sorry, that's an old joke. After looking at the pic again, you are right the door does look slightly different. I've noticed in person too that each panel kinda has its own character. Sometimes I think the bed doesn't look like it matches at all, and other times I think the whole truck looks mismatched and the bed looks fine.

Patina can be matched, and faux-tina doesn't have to be ugly. I had to replace the rear cross sill under the tailgate and fix the door bottoms, fender bottoms, and hood edges on my dad's '66. I bought a kit at Hobby Lobby that uses paint with iron particles to add real rust, and layered the paint/primer the same way the old paint was. Used a rolled up rag soaked in lacquer thinner to work through the top layer of paint without sanding, then did a very thin brown "wash coat" on top of that to help match the grungy look. The whole truck was cleared with flattened SPI Universal clear after thoroughly scuffing it to get the oxidized paint and primer off.